Well, for starters, you can't judge an entire era of Lionel production based on a single engine decades old that you bought from another owner. You have no idea what the real history of that engine is, although to you it appears new. Even if it were new, there is no logic in concluding that an imperfection in one engine warrants a generalization about thousands of engines made during a production period that lasted for years.
It's possible that you just got an engine with a very rare defect, or, more likely, that engine you got has a suspicious history, especially considering that not one but the armatures of both motors are allegedly bent.
Personally, I had a set of LTI Santa Fe Warbonnet engines years ago, no. 11711 from 1991, and it ran very well and for a long time.
Hello breezinup...........
maybe so...I bought the set from Grzyboski's trains and he sell NOS trains and I know him for long time so I have trust in him when dealing older lionel. I suspected the engine some how slipped by the QA testing and straight to the box. I am aware of all companies that cannot test every piece for quality check. This engine has no signs of ever being on the track even at the factory the day it was packed in the original box back in 1993. It is too bad the replacement parts are expensive like 25 dollars for one armature. It is very strange to find 2 bend armatures in ONE engine. When I post this thread I was venting out of my chest. I had MPC and postwar double motor F-3's and they didn't have problems like the one I have now !!! The only reason I purchased this set was the blue and yellow Santa Fe colors I was after. I am glad I had some skills to fix it myself. I was a QA inspector for dept. of defense (DOD) and that how I was able to spot QA problems in mechanical things by just looking at it. I know that Grzyboski never even knew there was a defect on it and he just had one set of this type of F-3's. I will just buy the parts and repair it and be happy with it. It does help to vent once in while. I installed metal gears in it too and replaced the brush plates with the postwar ones as they have metal bearing in it and the MPC and later brush plates do not. I was trying to up grade it to be like the older 2383's but with the modern better plastic and painted shell.
the woman who loves the S.F.5011,2678,2003,200
Tiffany
